Swiss Elections & Politics (Next election 2019)

[Ethelberth]

Actually, its simply Canton of Tug.

[parochial boy]

Results from today's votes are in, and no surprises (OK, slightly bigger rejections for the two agricultural initiatives than I expected, but in the right ballpark)

Bike Path initiative
Yes - 74%
No - 26%

Fair Food
Yes - 39%
No - 61%

Food Sovereignty
Yes - 31%
No - 69%

(these are projections as there are still a few final results to come in, but numbers won't change substantially) Maps courtesy of Tribune de Genève here


What is emerging today is a huge Röstigraben effect on the two agricultural votes, which had been picked up by the polling, but is still one of the most dramatic examples we have seen in a while. Romandie as a whole has accepted both "Fair Food" and "Food Sovereignty", with the four usually progressive cantons of Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel and Jura all accepting both, even while they were being rejected heavily across the rest of the country. (actually I'm a little bit surprised by Vaud, which normally toes the line a bit more than the other three)

Of course, a few of the usual suspects have popped up to claim that there hasn't been a Röstigraben today, pointing to the "No" votes in Valais and Fribourg. In my opinion this doesn't really hold up, as in Fribourg, the only reason "Fair Food" was rejected was because of the German part of the canton - and in Valais Romand, both agricultural initiatives still got about 10% higher Yes votes than the national level. Similarly, the normal excuses of the like that "Romandie is just more urban" and that the urban/rural divide is the key factor don't really work today either. In a situation where you have Basel-Stadt voting solidly "No" on both questions (and the city of Zurich too), at the same time as Collonge-Bellerive or the Broye voting Yes, then you have a divide that has quite clearly got a very strong linguistic aspect to it.

(Of course what this means is more delightful Geneva bashing from the right-wingers, land of the bobos-bisounours-bien-pensant etc, etc...)

In other news, St Gallen became the second canton in the country to ban the Burqa after Ticino (similar initiatives have been rejected in Glarus, Zurich, Solothurn and Schwyz, of all places), or to put it more precisely, "covering your face in public" has been banned. Since the ban came into place in Ticino, a total 37 people have actually been prosecuted under it. Amusingly, all 37 were football supporters.

[Tender Branson]

In other news, St Gallen became the second canton in the country to ban the Burqa after Ticino (similar initiatives have been rejected in Glarus, Zurich, Solothurn and Schwyz, of all places), or to put it more precisely, "covering your face in public" has been banned. Since the ban came into place in Ticino, a total 37 people have actually been prosecuted under it. Amusingly, all 37 were football supporters.

37 ? And no Muslims among them ?

That's odd.

In Austria, where the full veil ban is law as well, there have been more than 100 fines for Arab tourists alone in July here in the city of Zell am See.

https://www.kleinezeitung.at/oesterreich/5474965/Zell-am-See_Verschleierungsverbot_Hunderte-Abmahnungen-und

The problem: many Arab tourists/women with full-face veils simply pay the 150€ fine, take the veil down and once the police is gone, they put it up again or pay the fine again (many of them are quite wealthy).

Sometimes, the police are just giving up because many conservative Arabs are just "learn-resistant".

[parochial boy]

In other news, St Gallen became the second canton in the country to ban the Burqa after Ticino (similar initiatives have been rejected in Glarus, Zurich, Solothurn and Schwyz, of all places), or to put it more precisely, "covering your face in public" has been banned. Since the ban came into place in Ticino, a total 37 people have actually been prosecuted under it. Amusingly, all 37 were football supporters.

37 ? And no Muslims among them ?

That's odd.

In Austria, where the full veil ban is law as well, there have been more than 100 fines for Arab tourists alone in July here in the city of Zell am See.

https://www.kleinezeitung.at/oesterreich/5474965/Zell-am-See_Verschleierungsverbot_Hunderte-Abmahnungen-und

The problem: many Arab tourists/women with full-face veils simply pay the 150€ fine, take the veil down and once the police is gone, they put it up again or pay the fine again (many of them are quite wealthy).

Sometimes, the police are just giving up because many conservative Arabs are just "learn-resistant".

Ticino has very few Muslims, and those Muslims who are there are mostly Albanian and Bosniak - and actually quite secular. On the flip, Switzerland does have a bit of a problem with football and ice hockey holiganism

Anyway, here is a map of the fair food vote by commune - showing the language divide in all its glory

[Velasco]

Ticino has very few Muslims, and those Muslims who are there are mostly Albanian and Bosniak - and actually quite secular. On the flip, Switzerland does have a bit of a problem with football and ice hockey holiganism

Don't blame sweet and tender hooligans

[parochial boy]

After a week of rumours, PLR Federal Councillor Johann Scheider-Ammann has resigned, which means we have the joy of another campaign for a new PLR federal councillor in the space of 12 months. Although there's really no need seeing as it's not like him leaving will have any impact on the amount they actually get done.

Anyway, for various reasons, the replacement should be a woman from German-Switzerland (although the PLR are more interested in money than in being woke, so it won't necessarily be a woman), which makes Petra Gössi seem like the most obvious candidate. Not sure I can bear to follow this one to be honest.

Schneider-Ammann was also from the liberal (read Thatcherite) wing of the party (apparently there's a non-Thatcherite wing, who knew?)

Anyway, in honour of Schneider-Ammann, a man who makes most of his income in Luxembourg because he thought Swiss taxes were too high. Here is his absolute finest moment, as president back in 2016.

Which means we have the joy of getting another campaign for a new PLR councillor in the space of 12 months. Although there's really no need seeing as it's not like him leaving will have any impact on the amount they actually get done. Terrific.

Anyway, for various reasons, the replacement should be a woman from German-Switzerland (although the PLR are more interested in money than in being woke, so it won't necessarily be a woman), which makes Petra Gössi seem like the most obvious candidate. Not sure I can bear to follow this one to be honest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve6RyRduDoc

[parochial boy]

Doris Leuthard has resigned as federal councillor, not a surprise, but still, two in a week...

Leuthard's resignation getting much more positive coverage overall - she was well liked, had a (very) succesful record in defending referendums, and was very effective at bridging the gap between the PS and PLR/UDC on the federal council; even despite being the only PDC Federal Councillor once they lost their traditional second seat to the UDC.

So now we get two campaigns at once - all running parallel with the "Foreign Judges" vote. The replacement will undoubtedly be a Swiss-German, as they are currently relatively underrepresented on the federal council; but I've not seen any names thrown around of yet, which really speaks to the weakness of the party on the political scene these days.

Going a bit more broadly, Leuthard's replacement will definitely be another PDC no-one is doubting that. However, the continued decline of the party is starting to raise questions about their seat. Suppose they go under 10% next year, or that they are eventually passed by a smaller party*, then various figures might start clamouring to break the magic formula, again. On top of this, there is the underlying suspicion that Leuthard's own personal popularity may have been holding up the party's support over the past few year - so without anyone in the party really having a national profile, or much popularity at all, 2019 could be a really tough year for them.

In other news, Gössi has declined to stand for the PLR federal council spot - on the basis she has committed to take the party through the 2019 elections - meaning the media has essentially already crowned Karin Keller-Sutter (a St Gall Conseillère aux états, and current president of the upper chamber) as her replacement. By all accounts Keller-Sutter is pretty right wing ("Blocher in a skirt" being her rather charming nickname), and unpopular with the left (heh, the same could be said of any Swiss German PLR to be honest) for, among other things, leading the campaign against the pension reforms last year; although she has softened her earlier harsh stance on asylum seekers - and seems to be less ultraliberal than the gus being touted as her most likely adversaries.

* I would rate this relatively low risk for the time being. It would take the Greens hitting their 2007 levels (even without the Liberal wing), as well as a sharp drop for the PDC down to, well who knows what their floor is. Alternatively, an eventual Green Liberal/PBD merger might find the numbers somewhere, but both parties have been on a pretty steady decline since their respective formations (even is the GreenLiberals have probably stopped falling) - and who knows what effect a merger might have.

[parochial boy]

GFS.Bern have done a poll for the federal elections. As always, a little bit moot as party swings are always within the margin of error, but what the hell. Numbers are (with changes relative to 2015)

UDC - 28% (-1.4%)
PS - 18.7% (-0.1%)
PLR - 17.3% (+0.9%)
PDC - 11% (-0.6%)
Greens - 9.1% (+2%)
GreenLiberals -5.9% (+1.3%)
PDB - 2% (-2.1%)

Summarising somewhat by party -
UDC - looks pretty much in line with cantonal election results

PS - would probably find this disappointing, seeing as they have the goal of hitting 20% next year. Being broadly flat ties up with the sorts of results they have been having in Romandie, but they've generally being winning votes in German Switzerland, so they would really expect to be gaining.

PLR - would probably also expect to be picking up more than that gonig on recent results...

PDC - would probably take that as a result, considering other pollsters have had them at under 10%

Greens - would be delighted as it takes them almost back to 2007 levels. 9% seems high though, as it is in line with their scores in Romandie, but they have been flatlining in German Switzerland - so I wouldn't expect them to gain this much

GreenLiberals - in line with a lot of recent polling, but their scores have been stagnating in cantonal elections, so I'm kind of surprised

PBD - Well, they're doing badly, but I don't think they're doing that badly

On top of that, the combined PLR/UDC score seems more or less flat (down 0.5%). Seeing as the big factor next year will be about whether they can keep their combined bear majority of one, there isn't much of an indication either way. In theory, if PLR gains don't make up for UDC losses it could happen, but, well...

Also bear in mind that in 2019 French Switzerland is gaining two seats at the expense of German Switzerland - Vaud and Geneva gain one seat each, and Bern and Lucerne both lose one. In theory, this should help the PLR (the biggest party in both VD and GE) and probably mostly hurt the UDC. Having said that, it could also help the far left (PdT/POP or SolidaritéS) pick up a seat in either Geneva or Vaud, as they usually fall just short in both cantons - but really depends on the individuals who are standing; and in any case, they very well might lose Denis de la Reussille's seat in Neuchatel next year, as he got in of the in part thanks to an apparentement with the Greens, which might not happen next year as a result of bickering between the two parties.

[parochial boy]

And here is Sotomo's poll for the SSR



Similar picture overall, probably slightly closer to what the cantonal elections over the last two years have been showing. GreenLiberals still suprising though.

[PSOL]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-secrecy/era-of-bank-secrecy-ends-as-swiss-start-sharing-account-data-idUSKCN1MF13O

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So what pressure brought this change.

[EPG]

It says something about Switzerland that GreenLiberals and Bourgeois Democrats are both viable.

[parochial boy]

It says something about Switzerland that GreenLiberals and Bourgeois Democrats are both viable.

I mean, the PBD aren't viable. They were never anything more than a parti de notables for a few old school UDC moderates and with it's support concetrated in a handful of localised strongholds. And now that Widmer-Schlumpf and Schmid have gone they really don't have anything to offer that the GreenLiberals don't already do better, beyond a vague and poorly defined "respectable centrism".

Most likely is that at some point in the next few years, the PBD either peter out, or wind up merging into the GreenLiberals, who are basically the same but at least have a somewhat national profile.

So what pressure brought this change.

Because Switzerland does what the EU tells it to do, or risks impoverishment. Which is why the referendum this November is going to be so much fun

[parochial boy]

Results from the cantonal elections in Zug -

In the Regierungsrat, the Greens lost their seat to the PDC, Andreas Hürlimann actually finishing behind Barbara Gysel of the PS. So the new make up of the executive is:

PDC - 3
PLR - 2
UDC - 2

Despite that, the left did relatively well in the Kantonsrat elections, with both Greens and PS gaining, in large part thanks to a good score in the downmarket suburb of Baar. Results for the legislature are:

PDC - 21 (-1)
UDC - 18 (-1)
PLR - 17 (-1)
Greens - 11 (+1, but 4 more seats as they had 3 defections over the course of the parliament)
PS - 9 (+2)
GreenLiberals - 4 (no change)

So a gain of 3 seats for the left, go figure.

Might as well at this point, introduce the last set of referenda of 2018. Due to take place on the 25th of November, with three questions up at the national level-

1. The popular initiative "For self-determination" ie "against the foreign judges" that would constitutionally establish the primacy of Swiss over international law. I've already ranted about this one, but suffice to say it's very much part of the tradition of modern day Swiss politics that, a year or so out from the federal elections, we will have a UDC initiative that is designed to put their issues (sovereignty/immigration) on top of the agenda; as well as to create a mess that cannot be meaningfully implemented if it passes - allowing the UDC to snipe from the sidelines.

2. The "pour les vaches a cornes" popular initiative, which would create a subsidy specifically for dairy farmers who don't remove the horns of their cows of goats (...). I think this is like the fourth agricultural vote in the space of 18 months, not really sure why we have to be constantly voting on an industry that makes up about 1% of GDP

3. A referedum on whether Insurers (both social security and private health insurers) should be allowed to "monitor" their clients. A rather hillarious law that allows insurers to track their clients' private lives, which CSS (the insurance company who lobbied for the law to be introduced) is insisting needs to be implemented to allow them to crack down on fraud, specifically with regards to people on long term sickness (ie, they promise the won't be spying on all of their clients). The fear is that, as well as being an intrusion of privacy; this will give insurers (both public and private) sweeping powers to spy on people claiming unemployment benefits, AVS (social security) and so on. It also comes at a time where the health insurers are, shall we say, not exactly popular; with healthcare costs being one of the top political issues at the moment. So we could (hopefully) turn this into a wider debate on the abuse of power by the health insurance sector - as well as of federal councillor Ignazio Cassis's "close" relationship with the health insurance lobby.

As two of the votes are popular initiatives, it is worth making a point on the contemporary success rate of the popular initiative. Since they were introduced, only 22 out of over 200 popular initiatives have actually passed. However, 11 of these Yes votes occured during the period between 2004-2014 (including most famously, the minaret ban in 2009,  the vote to deport foreign criminals in 2010, or the vote against mass immigration in 2014). However, since 2014, not a single one has passed (including the failures of other UDC initiatives like "Save our gold" or the second "deport foreign criminals" vote).

The reason for this can mostly be put down to the fact that 2004-2014 was a time of significant disruption in Swiss politics. It was the era where the UDC emerged as the largest political force - combined with the decline of the PLR and PDC. At the same time, it was an era where the "magic formula" still hadn't caught up with the political scenario; at the start of the century, the PDC still had two federal councillors to the UDC's one; and in 2007, there was the whole palace coup that saw Blocher kicked off the federal council and the emergence of the PBD.

All of this meant that, during that era, the UDC became an unambiguous opposition party, something the country had not meaningfully experienced since the early 1950s. But on top of that, as a result of Blocher's original election; and his later expulsion, confidence in the federal council fell to a historical low among both left wing and right wing voters. All of this meant that the population as a whole became much more receptive to voting against the federal council's position.

At the same time, there are other reasons that can be pointed out as the reason for the phenomena during that period. The rise of the internet made it much more straightforward to collect the 100,000 signatures required, which led to a higher number of these votes coming to the ballot box; and also allowed supporters of the initiatives more of a platform to make their case. Likewise, the start of the 2000s was a period of economic stagnation in Switzerland, coupled with phenomena like industrial decline and an increasing concentration of wealth around the 3 big urban areas of Zurich, Basel, Geneva/Lausanne, as well as the integration of ex-Yugoslav and (especially) Albanians which caused a fair deal of anxiety among the Swiss people.

Obviously, much of this has now abated; Albanians are increasingly seen as being well integrated, and the economy has been succesful, not only in the big cities - but also in industrial areas like the Jura mountains in Neuchâtel or between Bienne and Aarau. But as well as this, the "return to normality", which saw Guy Parmelin elected to the federal council in 2015; have all contributed to a significant increase in level's of trust in the politicians, and a change in political issues (there have also been fewer popular initiatives over the last 3-4 years, somehat knocking the "but teh internetz" argument that alot of political elites were using to claim that direct democracy was a fundamental threat to the country's prosperity). With the end result being that popular initiatives have fallen back to their traditional low success rates.

[parochial boy]

Tamedia and GFS.Bern both have their first polls out for November, and both look pretty bad for the UDC's foreign judges initiative.

Tamedia have:
Yes - 45%
No - 53%

GFS.Bern have
Yes - 39%
No - 55%

In both cases, roughly equal support across the language divide, somewhat surprisingly.

As always, the normal caveat applies, support for popular initiatives virtually always drops, usually significantly, as the campaign progress.

Really, this could be quite a blow for the UDC, there is a general feeling that a score below 40% would actually damage them going into the federal elections next year, as it could mean losing credibility on the "Sovereignty" issue, or imply that their hardline on the issue is no longer winning national support. The first round of polls, would imply that they could wind up with well under that level.

Having said that though, I very much doubt that support will drop in the massive way that happens with most popular initiatives. Basically, as it was a UDC initiative, it was always going to come in with a lower level of support, as a lot of people hate the party - and would instinctively reject any proposition coming from that. Add to that, we are at a higher stage of "opinion formation" as GFS.Bern puts it, than usual, as the topic has been in the media for a while now, so people know what it is about; the federal councils position etc, etc.. Add to that the fact that the UDC are actually quite good at campaigning (I once saw them referred to as "the only professional political party in Switzerland", which is a somewhat cynical, but not totally unfair assessment), and I suspect that the Yes vote won't drop away as much as might be expected.

"Cow horns" is at 53% Yes to 39% No according to Tamedia and 58%-36% according to GFS.Bern. It will fail massively

the "Surveillance law" is up 57% to 39% for GFS.Bern and 67% to 30% for Tamedia; obviously an attack on "benefits fraud" will be popular witht the public; only the left and some GreenLiberals are opposed.

In the Federal Council races, Karin Keller-Sutter has been all but crowned as new PLR Federal Councillor; and a bunch of people are being touted for the PDC race. Three candidates have declared so far: Peter Heggelin, a Zug Conseiller d'Etat, who would be terrible; Elisabeth Schneider-Schneiter of Basel-landschaft, who is more of a moderate as urban PDC's tend to be; and Heidi Z'graggen of Uri, who has the double advantage in the representation game of being both a woman and being from Central Switzerland, which hasn't had a federal councillor since 2003.

Neither of them would be too bad, and some of the other names being mentioned seem decent... enough. They're all Swiss-Germans though, so not people I have much familiarity with. (and in any case, the Greens reckon, somewhat optimistically, that they'll be able to take the PDC's seat after 2019).

[parochial boy]

So,uh, seeing as the next federal election is less than a year away - can someone change the thread title?

Anyway, tamedia did a new poll for the November votes, almost identical to the first set. They still aren't showing any language divide for the self-determination one, whereas gfs.bern are. Past experience would tend to suggest gfs.bern are more likely to be right about that.

Also, Viola Amherd has joined the line up for the PDC Federal Council race. She was the favourite, then got caught in a scandal about charging to much for rent and looked as if she wouldn't stand. She's still probably the strongest candidate; good reputation, "pragmatic" (ie good at the balancing act between the left and the right) and from Oberwallis (insert joke here), so a good representative for the sparsely populated alpine regions.

[parochial boy]

So, if anyone remembers, last June, the town of Moutier voted to leave the canton of Bern and join the canton of Jura, which was supposed to mark the end of the decades old separatist conflict in the francophone northern part of the canton of Bern.

Anyway, today, the Jura Bernois prefecture has decided to cancel the results of the referendum. So Moutier isn't leaving anymore.

Basically, this is in the context of a number of ongoing disputes that have been going on over the last 18 months, including accusations of the electoral brochure published at the time of the vote being "propaganda" (as it was the separatist municipal council who published it); as well as ongoing accusations of "electoral tourism" - ie, people moving to Moutier for the sole reason of voting in that referendum.

Anyway, point being, in a close (51.5-48.5) run referendum, and without enough doubt about the legitimacy of the vote to call into question whether it was a genuine democratic exercise, the result was cancelled, restarting the "question jurassienne". Predictably, this has caused outrage, will be very interesting to see how this plays out.

[parochial boy]

So it's probably worth posting something as there is a fairly busy week coming up in Swiss politics.

The three referendums are up tomorrow - polling numbers haven't really changed over the last few weeks, so  looking like a rejection for the two popular initiatives while the surveillance law will pass easily. The traditional language divide should show up in both the self-determination and surveillance law votes.

Support for the Self-determination vote in particular has held up seemingly down to an unusual, but pretty succesful, campaign by the UDC. Traditionally, they have gone in for big provocative poster campaigns that have left the other parties unable to respond - whereas this time round, the other parties all went down the provocative route (for instance, the PS's "Switzerland Resists"or the PDC's "betray Henri Dunant?" (the founder of the red cross) line. In contrast, the UDC have gone for a much more peaceful campaign style (led by this poster), which has wrong footed the other parties by making them look ever so slightly hysterical.

Anyway, it should still fail - key is whether it passes over the 40% barrier or not.

In other news, the scandal about politicians funding has been ongoing - Switzerland has some of the most opaque rules around party funding of any modern democracy, something that especially benefits the PLR - the party with the strongest links to "corporate interests" - and the UDC, who have a rather notorious, but secretive, fund based in Zug (lol, where else?) which funds much of their campaigning but whose source of funding is, well, basically untraceable.

So far though, the only victim of the story has been Géraldine Savary, the Socialist Conseillère aux états from Vaud - who has announced she won't stand for re-election next year in the light of revelations about billionaire Frederik Paulsen making donations to her previous campaigns.

Of couse, the allegations around, among others Geneva PLR Pierre Maudet and PDC Guillaume Barrazone, both alleged to have taken significant kick backs from Emirati billionaires, in exchange for, guess what, various contracts relating to Geneva airports and real estate laws changing in ways that directly benefit UAE owned investment funds... would be much worse. In a stunning testament to the integrity of the right wing parties, neither of the two men have yet even so much as admitted they may have done anything wrong.

Oh and yes, the double election to the federal council is on the 5th of December. In the PLR, it should be a coronation of Karin Keller-Suter, confirming the party's shift towards a more anti-immigration and "conservative" stance. In the PDC, my impression is that it should be a battler between Viola Amherd and Heidi Z'Graggen (which would mean a third women sitting in the federal council). Amherd is campaigning very much on a centrist, even left leaning "compromise" platform, which should mean some degree of continuity with Leuthard. Whereas Z'Graggen is taking a more Conservative line - being more sceptical of the EU "framework agreement" negotiations and promising not to sign the UN migration pact.

[parochial boy]

Ok, here are results for today's referenda, and well, the real story is the massive slap in the face the UDC have just taken. The Foreign Judges initiative just managed to scrape over a third of the vote, well below expectations, and pretty much unanimous agreement among the commentariat that this bodes badly for the party. Of course, the trend overall in the last couple of years pretty much bears up with the UDC losing ground, but, well, this was a very pleasing result today.

Here is a map of the results - pretty much an exact replica of what the map normally looks like for these sorts of votes... except much redder.



The surveillance referendum pased with just under 65% of the vote, as predicted, a big language divide with the two traditionally left wing cantons of Geneva and Jura being the only two to reject the law.



Finally, the cow horns initiative was rejected with 55% no, making it one of the closest popular initiatives in a while now. As for the patterns, the highest support was in the big left wing cities, but, apart from that, seems almost random at first glance - hard to explain the yes in rural Glaris; or in Schaffhausen, which has neither cows nor big towns.



For my own amusement, here is how the most well knows of the traditional cheese making regions voted:

Valais (Raclette) - 49% Yes
Fribourg (Vacherin Fribourgeois - one half of the traditional fondue motié-motié) - 34% Yes
The Gruyère district of fribourg (Gruyère, the other half of a fondue) - 31% Yes
The Appenzells (Appenzeller) - 34% Yes in the Inner Rhodes, 44% Yes in the Outer Rhodes
Emmental district of Bern ("Swiss Cheese") - 36% Yes

Clearly dairy farmers decided being paid to not cut the horns off their cows wasn't actually worth it...

[parochial boy]

Viola Amherd (PDC) and Karin Keller-Sutter (PLR) were both elected the the federal council in the first round on Wednesday. In the grand schemes of things, it doesn't really change the balance within the council, except that Keller-Sutter is more immigration sceptical than the ultra-liberal Scheider-Ammann was. Very little of interest to say other than that.

Equally predictably, Ueli Maurer was elected as president for 2019